Today is the 13th day of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. By point of comparison, the most dangerous phase of the Cuban missile crisis lasted 13 days in all. A thread on the similarities and differences between the two crises. 1/ 
History never repeats itself exactly. 2022 is very different from 1962. But there are some truths that remain eternal, particularly in a nuclear age. Most important lesson of missile crisis is that mistakes/miscalculations increasingly likely as you move up escalatory ladder. 2/
The more forces you mobilize, the greater the risk that some minor incident will trigger a fatal escalation. Leaders lose control over events, which assume a momentum of their own. They also lose control over their own forces which are operating in fog of war. 3/
Actual example: Russian shelling of Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant. Stray shell could have led to radioactive release, prompting international intervention of some kind. 4/
Hypothetical examples: war plane straying over NATO-Russia border, dangerous naval encounter (both happened during missile crisis), cyberattack going haywire etc. Nuclear version of Murphy's law: anything that can go wrong will go wrong, but we can't afford even small mistake. 5/
Debate over whether Putin is "rational" or "irrational" not particularly comforting. Both Kennedy and Khrushchev were "rational actors" during missile crisis. Neither wanted nuclear war, but they still brought the world to the edge of the nuclear abyss. 6/
Differences - good. Even though Putin has been waving his nuke card, we are nowhere near the point on escalation ladder we reached in 1962. Current Russian nuke alert level seems fairly low, leaving room for escalation, short of nuke war. Biden hasn't responded in kind. 7/
Differences - bad. But these are early days. Ukraine crisis likely to continue for months, possibly years, much longer than missile crisis. Likely to turn into proxy war between Russian occupying force and western-armed Ukrainian insurrectionists. 8/
Overall assessment. Improvements in communications, locking devices on nukes have reduced chance of accidental firing of nuke weapon. But we now face completely new dangers and uncertainties. World much more complicated/interconnected than 1962. Events move much faster. 9/
We don't know for sure where Putin's red lines are. Unlikely to tolerate no-fly zone without major Russian escalation. But what about arming of Ukrainian resistance, sanctions that cripple Russian economy (parallel with Japan 1941?). Huge gray area here. 10/
Risks of direct confrontation between U.S. and Russian forces fairly low at present. But multiply that by X months or Y years and Z number of things that can go wrong, and risks turn out to be similar mathematically. 11/11
Contrast between Khrushchev and Putin also relevant. Khrushchev had personal experience of WWII in his native Ukraine, which informed his horror of nuke war. This is one reason why he decided to de-escalate, and withdraw his missiles from Cuba after just 13 days 12/
Putin has no experience of WWII-type war. His wars were smaller, with largely positive outcomes from his point of view: Chechnya, Georgia, Ukraine 2014, Syria. His risk appetite is probably higher than Khrushchev's. 13/
Strangely, there were more checks and balances in USSR than Putin's Russia. Khrushchev was ultimately answerable to his Politburo colleagues who ousted him in 1964. Putin is answerable only to Russian people, in a system without free elections or free information. 14/14
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